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His smile returned. “It means we both want to be around each other. How do you feel about that?”
She shrugged her good shoulder, straightening as he released her. “That’s normal, right?” She moved her hand between them. “With this kind of thing?”
Antonio relaxed into the bed. “It can be,” he said, but his voice sounded weird. Like he wasn’t saying something.
She decided to ignore whatever was buried beneath. “Yeah. Exactly. No need to complicate things.” She backed away. “I should go.”
“If you decide you want to come back after, I’ll be here.”
Vespa scowled. “You better be. Jesus Christ, you were just shot!” She pointed a finger at him. “You. Rest.”
A huff escaped him that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Is that an order?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re hurting too much for that to get your rocks off.” Her boots stomped to the door. His words of farewell chased her out of the room and off the estate grounds.
With the afternoon already passing, it was pointless to head to the docks. Vespa aimed for the warehouse instead. Most of the work had been done by the time she arrived. She hadn’t been needed after all, and regret made her twitchy. She should have stayed with Antonio.
No, there was no ‘should,’ not when it came to whatever was happening between them. But she could have stayed, and the crux of it was that she wanted to be there.
Giorgio nodded toward her as the capo finished up with his men. He’d been with the Coronellas since he was a kid, same as Vespa and Montrell. He’d been one of the boys who’d bullied her when they were younger, but he respected her well enough now. It had only taken bloodying his nose twice to fix that problem. He’d cried a lot the second time, but of course, they’d been kids at the time.
Vespa was the forgiving type when it came to that shit. Their fathers had all drilled them with the same misogynistic crap when they were growing up. It took a couple of licks for some of the men to understand she was as tough as them.
Besides, he’d only been making fun of her name, which was fair enough. She’d been named after a fucking scooter. The ‘vroom-vroom’ sounds were annoying as shit, though, so she’d put up a fight to knock them off. Giulia had laughed when she’d complained about it. She’d explained that Vespa’s father had been thinking of the wasp when he’d chosen her name. Plus there was some movie princess or something.
Her father had already been dead by then, so there was no taking him to task over his poor taste in names. Besides, she’d proven quickly enough that she was more than a silly name.
Suddenly a sound echoed up to them from the back of the warehouse, causing Giorgio’s head to snap up. He waved his men toward the rear entrance. A gunshot sounded from just outside the doors, and he swore under his breath as they left to investigate.
Vespa’s hand moved inside her jacket, pulling one of her guns free as the hairs along the back of her neck rose. There was nothing but more warehouses back that way.
Giorgio shared a look with her. “Expecting trouble?”
“Always,” she said with a shrug.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” he agreed. “Almost like—”
The muffled sound of a car door shutting came from out front.
“A distraction,” Vespa muttered.
Only one other soldier remained with them. Dominico was younger than they were, still building a name for himself, and Vespa recognized the scared look on his face. He’d worn it after Beatrice had planted a kiss on him in the downstairs hallway that one time.
The boxes available to take cover behind weren’t the safest. Not given the explosives they contained. She was debating their options when the enemy slipped inside, a good half dozen of them crowding the space. None were Albanians or even Bratva, the desperate enemies she’d half expected. They looked like Italians. Must have been Lucchese leftovers.
Giorgio was a step behind her, still drawing his gun.
Vespa took aim, surprised to find all the enemies targeting her and ignoring the two other Coronellas.
“Vespa Mortali!” Her name was given its proper Italian inflection, along with a layer of hate she wasn’t expecting, though she’d managed to piss off enough people in her lifetime.
She squeezed off a shot even as the person who said her name fired.
Giorgio threw himself in front of her, and his blood sprayed over her neck and face, nearly freezing her in place. His eyes were already wide and empty as he took the head shot that was meant for her.
It wasn’t enough that her bullet took out the shooter in return, not when there were five others and she’d lost a damn fine capo.
“Get back!” she screamed at Dominico. She gripped Giorgio’s body for cover as she continued to shoot, managing to dart behind the container to the left. At least the machine guns inside wouldn’t blow like the explosives up front.
